Miles wide planning freeze along M20 route
MALLOW AREA HIT BY DOUBLE WHAMMY AS MOTORWAY ‘CORRIDOR’ REMAINS A NO BUILDING ZONE
NOBODY hoping to build a house within miles of the planned new M20 Cork-Limerick motorway will get planning permission until the precise route has been finalised - which could drag on into next year.
This comes in the wake of freshly re-applied planning restrictions along the Blackwater Special Area of Conservation, which is a double whammy for building in the Mallwo area.
On Monday last Cllr Liam Madden (FG) told a meeting of Cork County Council that the original route corridor has been widened significantly by the Limerick-based M20 Project Team, with the potential to include a light rail system alongside the motorway.
Cllr Madden said that people seeking planning permission within the new, expanded route corridor are being told that their application is ‘premature’ until such time as the exact routes for both the motorway and light rail are finalised. In effect, this means that no planning permissions can be granted for any development along the entire route corridor.
Cllr Madden was backed up by party colleague Cllr Tony O’Shea, who said the new corridor stretches from eight to 10 miles wide in his area, south of Mallow.
Cllr Madden said it is vital that the M20/light rail selection process is sped up and that the route corridor be reduced in size as quickly as possible to allow some planning applications to be granted.
“We need to sit down with these people and define when the route selection will be,” said Cllr Madden.
Meanwhile, Cllr John Paul O’Shea, also FG, said he was surprised to see the extent of the new zone for the route corridor. “In Macroom the bypass corridor was a few hundred metres wide. This (route corridor) study will continue into 2021 and a lot of land will be sterilised as a result in the meantime, and that’s deeply concerning,” he said.
Meanwhile, ambitious plans by Dairygold and Lidl to develop a major commercial and retail hub at the western edge of Mallow town could be held up, possibly for years to come, unless a controversial EU ruling protecting the Freshwater Pearl Mussel in the River Blackwater is reversed.
In recent weeks a court case reintroduced protection along the entire length of the River Blackwater for the endangered Freshwater Pearl Mussel forcing the county council to refuse a developer planning for 95 houses in Mallow as a result.